Wednesday, June 14, 2006

WCA Takes Position on Net Neutrality

The Wireless Communications Association International (WCA) has joined NetCompetition.org http://www.netcompetition.org/ -- an e-forum to promote a debate on the merits of net neutrality regulation."With spectrum a scarce and expensive resource, it is imperative that wireless broadband providers remain free to manage their own networks," commented WCA President Andrew Kreig. "Net neutrality regulation would discourage innovation and investment in more competitive broadband choices to all Americans. Our member companies are investing heavily in...

BridgeCo Raises $23 million for Digital Home

BridgeCo, a developer of digital home networking products, raised $23 million in series D venture financing. The company recently opened a new headquarters in the Los Angeles suburb of El Segundo. The bulk of BridgeCo's engineering and development team will continue to be located in Zurich, Switzerland. BridgeCo also maintains sales and marketing offices in London, Taipei and Tokyo, and satellite development teams in Moscow and Bangalore."The US consumers are a major driver of the emerging digital home market," said Gene Sheridan, CEO of BridgeCo....

EdenTree Targets Automated Network Lab Testing

EdenTree Technologies introduced a re-architected version of its network lab automation software, an open "lab operating system" that works with any kind of network equipment, managing physical layer infrastructure to which test equipment and devices under test are connected. Instead of manual patch panels linking network test equipment to targeted switched and routers, EdenTree provides a software-controlled lab environment with drag-and-drop interfaces...

Network Processing Forum Merges with OIF, Completes Six IAs

The Network Processing Forum completed its merger with the Optical Internetworking Forum (OIF) and announced the completion of six new implementation agreements (IAs) covering software and benchmarking specifications. The NPF's latest technical work includes the Secure Socket Layer (SSL) Accelerator Service IA, which specifies a set of Services APIs for hardware that offloads and accelerates the processing of SSL. The NPF membership also approved the Switch Address Generator ATM Logical Functional Block (LFB) and Functional API IA. This, combined...

European Commission Urges Germany to Spur Fixed Telephony Competition

The European Commission is urging the German regulator, Bundesnetzagentur (BNetzA), to impose more effective competition remedies for fixed telephony.In December 2005, Deutsche Telekom AG was found by BNetzA to have significant market power on the retail access market and on the market for local and national calls. The current notification covers the remedies that BNetzA intends to impose on DTAG in the access market and in the market for national calls as a follow-up to the December findings.In line with the EU telecom rules, the European Commission...

FLO Forum Adopts Service and Technical Specifications

The FLO Forum, a multi-company initiative led by QUALCOMM and dedicated to the global standardization of FLO (Forward Link Only) technology, ratified and adopted three cornerstone technical specifications: the Service Information Specification, the FLO Services and Use Cases Specification and updated versions of the FLO Device and Transmitter Minimum Performance specifications.The System Information Specification defines the functions and structure of the system information (SI) associated with real-time and non-real-time broadcast and multicast...

mPhase Enhances its IPTV Software

mPhase Technologies announced several enhancements to its IPTV Software, including:the ability to manage multiple set top boxes (STBs) per locationthe ability to manage multiple accounts per subscriber, andmultiple STB managers that provide scalable failure recovery and load balancingThe new mPhase TV+ System Release 5.0 also includes an enhanced user interface with a new look and advanced program guide searching features. The company also added new language support for Russian, Arabic and Chinese.mPhase also added features for flexible and secure...

Internet2 and Level 3 Plan 100 Gbps Nationwide NGN

Internet2 and Level 3 Communications unveiled plans for a new nationwide network that will offer Internet2 members 100 Gbps of capacity, more than 10 times that of the current Internet2 backbone network, and will be designed to easily scale to add capacity as Internet2 members' requirements evolve.The network will support a full range of production IP services as well as new on-demand, dedicated optical wavelength services.Under the terms of the multi-year agreement, Level 3 will provide dedicated facilities enabling multiple 10 Gbps wavelengths,...

Charter Deploys 1 Millionth Cedar Point SAFARI C(Cubed) Line

Cedar Point Communications announced a deployment with Charter Communications that represents the shipment of Cedar Point's one millionth telephony line. The milestone was achieved less than two years after the initial deployment of SAFARI C(Cubed).Cedar Point's SAFARI C(Cubed) is a carrier class VoIP switch that incorporates all of the components that make up the voice switching infrastructure, providing a seamless evolution to SIP-based features and an IP Multimedia Subsystem (IMS) architecture. SAFARI C(Cubed) is PacketCable-qualified and future-architected...

Nokia Supports Celcom in Launching HSDPA in Malaysia

Celcom, a subsidiary of the TM Group, launched High Speed Downlink Packet Access (HSDPA) services in Malaysia offering download speeds up to 3.6 Mbps. Celcom is using Nokia's HSDPA solution. Apart from supplying to Celcom's expanded radio network, Nokia is also supplying the core network equipment to expand Celcom's current 3G network to four new regions. Under the agreement, Nokia is supplying the Nokia HSDPA solution with 3.6 Mbps capability, a radio access network and transmission from its radio network portfolio. From its Unified Core Networks...

Verizon: More Than Half of New Broadband Subscribers Now Choose DSL Over Cable

As many as one in seven new Verizon DSL customers who order service online have switched over from cable modem service. Verizon currently serves nearly 6 million wireline broadband customers.The Leichtman Research Group reports that more than half of all new high-speed Internet customers in the U.S. chose DSL over cable modem service in 2005, and that Verizon netted the most broadband customer additions among all cable and DSL providers in the nation over the past six months ("1Q 2006 Quarterly Notes," Leichtman Research Group Inc.).http://ww...